


The Dark Wolf

by grav_ity



Series: grav_ity plays dragon age origins [8]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 19:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17873816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grav_ity/pseuds/grav_ity
Summary: Alistair has a few too many questions about how this whole "secret secret identity" thing works.





	The Dark Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts during “Closure”, when the Warden arrives back in Denerim, and then expands out afterward, because Alistair is a dork. And, you know, so am I.

At some point after they make it to the bed but before they’ve figured out the logistics of how to arrange for food and still maintain some level of discretion, she tells him all the parts of her story that will be left out of her official report. She would rather tell him and Mhairi both at the same time, but they can’t figure out the logistics of that either, and with complete honesty: Kentha is more than a little selfish tonight.

“So let me get this straight,” Alistair interjects at one point in the narrative. He’s leaning back against the headboard and she’s curled up beside him. “You met a man in full armour, whose face you never saw and who claimed to be the most notorious villain in Fereldon, and you let him do your dirty work for you?”

“Yes,” Kentha replies. There’s a reason this is going to be left on the unofficial side of her duties.

“How did you know you could trust him?” Alistair demands. “It was your life and the whole of Amaranthine. If you wanted to be discreet, we could have made some arrangement, I’m sure.”

“I knew I could trust him because that’s how the Dark Wolf works,” Kentha says. “If he betrayed me, the Dark Wolf would have him killed.”

There’s a moment where Alistair turns it over in his mind. He’s not half as thoughtless as some of his nobles still think he is, but he still takes advantage of that moment to consider his responses.

“There was a crime wave in Denerim when we were here during the Blight,” he says eventually. He trails a hand down her bare arm where the sheet has slipped back. “I thought Cauldry was just buttering you up with all that legend talk, but…you’re the Dark Wolf, aren’t you?”

“Technically, no one really knows who the Dark Wolf is,” Kentha says. “But I suppose I am. It was always something of a group effort.”

“Oh, I recall,” Alistair says. “Even your hound was in on it at various points.”

He pushes off the headboard, the mattress pitching under the shift of his weight. Lying beside her, propped up on one elbow, he pulls the sheet back and looks at her, taking another one of those moments to plan his next attack.

“I’ll leave you out of it, of course,” Kentha tells him. She can tell she’s flushing under his gaze and that will only make him smug and she doesn’t care. “It hardly befits your new responsibilities.”

“You get to have all the fun.” He pouts. She does not remind him about the fun he _does_ get to have, but only because it has been quite an evening already and she’s not entirely sure how much more she can take if he decides to get creative.

In hindsight, that was the moment she should have realized that he was planning more than one sort of mischief, but in Kentha’s defense, Alistair has always been very, very good at providing a distraction by using his mouth.

++

She is three months in Orzamar. Dwarven politics are not any more tolerable now that the kingdom is settling down, but Kentha grits her teeth and pushes through it. As always, the dwarves bear the brunt of darkspawn attacks, and she does what she can to help them, while recruiting more Wardens where she can. At last, she has done everything she came back to the Deep Roads to do, and she sends a messenger to Denerim to tell the king and queen that she is on her way back.

It’s not a straight road, because it never is. Lake Calenhad is in her way, for starters, and she chooses to go around it to the north in order to avoid Redcliffe. Kentha does a few errands for the Mage Collective. Nothing that involves crossing Fereldon, but a few shorter runs for people who just want to be left alone. She can understand that all too well, even if she can’t ever speak about it publicly, as close as she is to the throne. She wears so many hats these days, it’s almost a relief to be an anonymous Warden, doing some good on her way home.

She almost doesn’t stop at the Spoiled Princess. It would be her preference to camp in the woods alone, but after she makes her drop, the clouds hovering above the lake finally break open, and a nice soaking rain begins to fall upon the summer-parched grass.

“Warden,” says the innkeeper, waving her over when she enters. “I’ve a message for you.”

Kentha really just wanted to sleep and get back on the road as early as possible, but she has never been able to resist this sort of thing.

“What is it, then?” She comes close to hear the words. It’s a slow night, but there’s no point in letting everyone eavesdrop.

“We’ve a Ser Wolf in tonight,” the innkeeper says. By his tone, he is blithely unaware of the weight of his words. “Asked if I would send him your way if you came in when the rain started. He’s upstairs. Third door on the left.”

Kentha is a bit surprised. They’re a long way from Denerim, and she’s only ever met the Dark Wolf in Amaranthine before. Still, misuse of the moniker bear a hefty penalty, and it’s not something Kentha can ignore in either case. She nods her thanks to the innkeeper, and heads for the staircase—though she waits until she is out of his sightline before she draws her sword.

She doesn’t knock. The door’s not locked, and she bursts through it with as little warning as she, a rogue in drakeskin, can manage. The Dark Wolf is standing by the hearth—he must have been keeping watch so he’d know when she arrived—and doesn’t appear surprised to see her. He’s wearing full armour, of course, with his helmet on so she can’t see his face. But she’d know him anywhere, and he is _definitely_ an imposter.

“You idiot,” she says, sheathing her sword across her back.

“Your idiot,” he corrects. She can hear the laughter in his voice. As ridiculous as he is, she has _missed_ him.

“Where does Eamon think you are?” she asks.

“Eamon is not my keeper,” he says. “You got me a new one, remember, and I find she is much more fun than he ever was.”

“How is Mhairi, then?” Kentha sits down on the bed and begins to strip her armour off.

“She’s pregnant,” Alistair says.

Kentha freezes, one greave half undone. She straightens, and Alistair takes the helmet off. There’s so much they didn’t have time to discuss. So many details they haven’t figured out yet, and now there is another variable. Another person to hurt if this goes wrong.

“She wanted to tell you privately,” Alistair continues. “When your messenger arrived, this was the best way we could think of.”

He crosses the floor and sits beside her. The armour weighs so much and the inn’s beds aren’t that good, and for a second, Kentha thinks the frame is going to break and they’re both going to end up on the floor, but really, she’s just falling into his arms. The metal is oddly comforting, a reminder of their days wandering Fereldon with a singular goal. Her hands reach for buckles. Nothing is simple anymore, and she wouldn’t go back even if she could.

Eventually he stands and finishes the job on his own. She watches him, still half in her own light armour, and waits.

“You know,” he says, “when I imagined meeting you on the road all clandestine-like, with the disguise and everything, it was a bit more rakish.”

“You’ve always been adaptable,” she points out. “And honestly, this isn’t a bad way of transporting messages.”

“I just,” Alistair says. “I just wanted you to know that it’s not _just_ the message. It’s not that I’m bored, either, or hemmed in. It’s that I—”

She stands, and closes the gap between them. His hands start peeling her out of cloth and leather.

“I know,” she says. “We will always be a changing thing, and Mhairi knows that too.”

They both smell of travel and dirt, but as he pushes her down onto the lumpy mattress, Kentha finds she doesn’t care. He strips off quickly, and follows her. His hands are everywhere, but there is no urgency to him and they come together like they have all the time in the world. He moves within her slowly, like he has had her a hundred times and will have her a thousand more, and her heart nearly breaks with the simplicity of it. When she crests, it’s almost softly, a stutter of rhythm and his mouth on hers, and her body in complete surrender to his warmth and his weight and his want of her.

++

Three days later, Kentha rides into Amaranthine alone. There are banners with the Queen’s colours hanging from the battlements, celebration of the royal pregnancy. Kentha thinks she might have been all right, finding out this way, but is glad she didn’t. It will be two more weeks before she makes it to Denerim, before she sees Mhairi with her own eyes and smiles while the Queen of Fereldon kisses her cheek and whispers welcome in her ear. 

Tonight, the Arlessa will toast the good news from her head table, and no one will ever guess the complexity of feelings in her heart. As she takes her seat again, Kentha looks out at her people: Wardens and the others who serve, all of them brave enough to stand against nightmares so that the children of Fereldon grow up in safety. She never dreamed of such good fortune, and even though it will never be an easy road, she knows she is loved and desired and respected and, by the right parties, feared. 

It’s a little piece of everything and she can’t quite bring herself to want it any other way.


End file.
